The Redemption of Ben Solo
by galben
Summary: DO NOT READ if you have not seen Rise of Skywalker! There may be spoilers. Rey/Kylo Ren. What would his life be like if he struggled with regret for the unspeakable acts he committed and turned away from the Dark Side?


Disclaimer: I own nothing from the Star Wars universe! It is now owned by Disney. I'm just a huge fan trying not to let Movie #9 break my heart forever.

This story is partially written from the first-person perspective of Ben Solo/Kylo Ren, and partially from third person.

Summary: "She stared into his eyes as they pulled away from their long-awaited kiss. His eyes crinkled as he smiled at her, and her heart was full." What if Ben Solo (Kylo Ren) did not die following _Rise of Skywalker_? What if he lived? What would his life be like, as he struggles with redemption and regret for the unspeakable acts he committed?

This story begins right after Rey and Ben kiss on Exegol…

Ben Solo's Redemption

Ben/Kylo Ren:

Rey stared into my eyes as we pulled away from a kiss. I could feel myself positively beaming at her. I held her by the waist as she grasped me back just as tightly. I didn't know what to say. I thought I had lost her to Palpatine, but he was gone and here she was – alive, smiling at me, and positively radiating her power. What a woman, I thought. I must be the luckiest man in the whole galaxy to be here with her. I smoothed back soft brown tendrils of hair from her face and we pressed our foreheads to each other's, basking in this perfect moment. I felt the sweat from her face against my own and her blood on my hands from when she'd touched me. Then I noticed a feeling within me. I've never felt this, I thought to myself. What is it?

A monumental crash distracted both of us. We both looked up and realized that the Sith fleet was falling – all the Star Destroyers were falling. The Resistance had taken over. As I watched the fiery light show, I realized that they were ready to depart. We were going to die for good if we stayed where we were. The Destroyers would squish us and Force or no Force, we were not going to survive that.

Rey stood up and pulled me up with difficulty. She weighed nothing compared to me, though she certainly matched me for sheer strength, I thought to myself wryly. I had fallen on my leg when Palpatine had thrown me into the abyss. It was extremely difficult to walk. The pain hadn't really set in and although I am quite resistant to it, I knew that something was awfully wrong with it. She supported me by putting one arm around my waist and sliding my arm around her shoulder. And though she was drained herself, she pressed her hand against the fracture on my leg and I could feel my bone knitting back together. It was an abhorrent feeling, but it didn't hurt. I could tell it wasn't completely fixed, but then, she couldn't give me too much of her life force.

"Ben, we have to go. And I want us to leave together."

I cleared my throat. "I saw your X-Wing when I came here. I brought my own ship. It's not too far from yours. Both of us will certainly not fit into the X-Wing."

"Come on then, let's go!"

Holding each other, we staggered into the darkness toward my ship.

* * *

Rey piloted the ship. I sat in the copilot's chair, feeling rather useless. The awkward jog/walk back to the ship had taken a lot out of me and I was catching my breath. She effortlessly guided the craft off the ground and skillfully avoided chunks of Star Destroyers as she flew towards a cloud that appeared to be made of every single ship in the galaxy.

She chuckled and I looked over at her. "Your eyes are huge. Are you that surprised there are so many Resistance fighters?"

I looked down at my hands, which I noticed were almost completely black from being filthy from dirt and soot. "No. I'm not surprised. I just…" I trailed off. I was most definitely surprised. At Crait, no one else had shown up. They would have all died if it hadn't been for her, and we both knew it.

Her attention was back on the fleet of Resistance ships, as she brought the craft up towards the back of the formation and followed them.

"I'm glad you found me. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't come for me."

I felt a lump in my throat. The same lump I had felt when the memory of my father had talked to me on the fallen Death Star. With some difficulty I managed to answer her.

"I knew I couldn't let you fall to him the way I did. There wasn't even a question in my mind on what I had to do. I just had to be strong enough to do it."

"That means everything to me, Ben." And she reached over and squeezed my hand. My heart jumped at her touch. And another question crossed my mind; where do I go from here? I didn't say that to her. At that moment, the weight of everything that had happened suddenly crossed my mind and I shut my eyes, utterly worn down. I slept.

* * *

As Rey piloted the craft, many thoughts crossed her mind. The primary one being: what would the other Resistance members think of her when she brought their most hated enemy, Ben Solo, also known as Kylo Ren, to them? Would they kill him?

_No_, she thought, _I won't let them. They need to try and understand what has happened to him. He never meant for any of this to happen. Palpatine was controlling him, he was the reason all of this happened. No one can fault him for that_.

_Oh yes they can_, a mean voice said in her head. _They will destroy him as he destroyed people you knew. Han, for one. And probably thousands of others throughout the galaxy. After all, he did call himself the Supreme Leader._

_I know who he is NOW_, Rey thought to herself fiercely. _He has turned to the Light Side. And he will NEVER go back. I will be with him. Always_.

_You almost went to the Dark Side_, the voice said back nastily. _What makes YOU think he won't_ _return to it?_

Rey didn't have an answer for that. She engaged the autopilot to continue flying after the line of ships. She shifted in her chair and snuck a look over at Ben. He was snoring in the chair, his dark hair falling over his face. His arms where awkwardly draped over the arm rests. The only thing stopping him from slinking out of the chair onto the floor was the harness strapped against his waist and chest. She could see that he was utterly exhausted. He must have felt absolutely safe around her to fall asleep like that. As she watched him, she could feel her facial features softening. This man was doing things to her she had never imagined just a few days ago. _What a mess I'm in_, she thought. _This is not going to go well._ And then something made her feel resolve. _I can't take him to the Resistance,_ she thought. _I need to let them get used to the idea first._

She slapped her chest, and walked toward the back of the command deck where her belongings were. She had grabbed them from the doomed X-Wing they had left on Exegol. She rummaged through her satchel and took out a holographer device, intending to send a video message to R2D2. She positioned it on the wall and turned it to record and sat down in front of it on a chair. Her stomach was in knots. Was she seriously doing this?

She spoke falteringly at first, but her voice gained strength as she spoke. "Poe, Finn, Chewie…let me just start by saying that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for things you don't know about. I'm sorry I didn't tell you what I was going through these past couple months. On Jakku, when I was growing up, all I had was myself. I was alone for so long and I didn't know how to let people in. So now I want to be honest with you. No more secrets…No lies. And this is going to hurt all of you, and I'm so sorry for that too."

She took a deep breath. "A few months ago, I started to have live visions of Kylo Ren. We were able to speak to each other through the Force. I could see him and he could see me. I didn't understand why it was happening. And I'm afraid that we…we started to get close to each other."

She paused for a moment and then continued. "It turned out to be Snoke who was joining us through the Force. He wanted us to know each other so that Kylo Ren could turn me to the Dark Side. He didn't succeed. I fought Kylo on the ship. I fought Snoke, and I won. But Kylo never gave up on chasing me because he felt something in me. It was a darkness that he knew he could feed. I had feelings of fear, anger, and hate. All of this started to lead me away from the light.

"On Exegol, the darkness.." her voice broke. "The darkness almost won. But Kylo came for me. He had turned to the Light after Leia called us both through the Force when she passed." Tears started to fall from her eyes freely. "I as good as killed Kylo. I stabbed him in the chest with his own saber. But Leia's presence prompted me to help him…to heal him. And I did. And after that day, Kylo Ren was dead. And Ben Solo was himself again.

She steadied her voice. "When I went to Exegol, Ben came for me. He saved me. He killed his own Knights of Ren to get to me, to stop the Emperor from turning me. And without him, I would have taken the Throne of the Sith and I would have been lost to the Darkness forever.

"I know that this is a lot to take in and I hope that you'll forgive me for what I have to do. Ben is with me on this ship. We will not be following you all to the Resistance Base. I can't bring him there. I know that many will never be able to forgive him for what he's done. All I can ask is that you please not try to find us. Please believe in me. And please believe that we will see each other again…just not now."

She smiled through her tears and reached up to stop the recording. She didn't realize that Ben's snoring had stopped and that his eyes were open. He had been listening to her recording.

* * *

Ben:

Rey finished her recording and moved over to the communications console to send it. I could hear her walking towards the front of the ship. I made a big show of yawning and opening my eyes. I didn't want her to think I had been spying on her private moment.

She noticed I was awake and quickly swiped at her face then concentrated on the navigation system. She punched in coordinates quickly, and as they loaded onto the screen, I asked her; "What's the plan?" I didn't recognize the system at all.

"I'm taking you somewhere we'll be safe." She said simply.

"I'd really like to know where we're going," I returned.

She shot me a look. "Stop being difficult," she ordered.

"Alright, alright," I held my hands up in surrender. She returned her attention to the controls and nav system and started to flip switches to get the ship ready for light speed. After some checks, we were on our way.

We came out of light speed and approached a planet I had never seen before. The planet we approached was green and blue, marvelously beautiful. The water was richly colored and appeared to cover most of the world. I glimpsed large fish flipping through the waves. The islands were rocky and large, and covered in lush carpets of green grass. I caught my breath. I hadn't seen the beauty that exists in nature in a long time.

Rey piloted the craft toward an empty clearing near several huts with rounded walls, expertly docking the landing gear to the surface. She turned off the engines and looked at me.

"Welcome to Ach-to, home of the Jedi."

* * *

Author's Note:

Ben and Rey have run away to Ach-to! No one except maybe R2 and BB-8 would know how to find them with Luke Skywalker's map. What is going to happen? I need to go dream about this.


End file.
